


Blue Lips, Blue Veins

by PlayingTheGameOfThrones



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy - Fandom, Marvel
Genre: F/M, Healing from trauma, Hurt & Comfort, angst but also plenty of fluff, thanos is a huge dick, these are my traumatized children and i love them very much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25351048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayingTheGameOfThrones/pseuds/PlayingTheGameOfThrones
Summary: After defeating her father and losing her sister – again – Nebula tries to relax aboard Kraglin Obfonteri’s ship. But new – old? – feelings resurface between them.
Relationships: kraglin/nebula
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	Blue Lips, Blue Veins

Nebula and Kraglin lay facing each other on Nebula’s narrow bed aboard the ship carrying Kraglin’s ragtag Ravager clan through a quiet stretch of the galaxy. After finally defeating her father and losing her sister – again – Nebula had nowhere to go. Quill had invited her to join him and his strange friends, but she had never felt at home with them, not when her sister wasn’t there, and no one, least of all Nebula, knew where she might be. She had spent a few restless nights in a spare bedroom in Tony Stark’s old house, with his wife and daughter insisting she stay as long as she liked, but that wasn’t her home, either. Nebula was quickly finding she had no home at all.

That was when Kraglin had reached out and suggested she stay on his ship with him, “for as long as she wanted to.” She wasn’t certain when the last time she had seen Kraglin was, but she had jumped at the opportunity to leave the strange planet she had found herself on, and to leave what remained of the Stark family to their grief – she knew grief herself very well, and she knew Kraglin did, too. 

She had been on Kraglin’s ship now for a week already, but curiously, the voice that usually screamed in Nebula’s head to keep moving, to get far away, had kept quiet, and she had no desire to leave.She had even begun letting Kraglin crawl into bed with her like this, thought that was as far as things had gone. Nebula liked his blue eyes – almost like her skin, she thought – and his gruff but soft voice, and the warmth of his body next to hers. But she could not imagine what Kraglin could possibly like about her. She was too afraid to ask.

Nebula watched in silence as Kraglin did something he hadn’t done before – he reached his hand out, moving as slow as it possibly could, as if not to startle a frightened animal. Every instinct of Nebula’s cried out to stop him, to grab his hand and force his fingers back until the bones snapped, but she bit the inside of her lip and forced herself to stay still. 

Even though she knew it was coming, she flinched when Kraglin traced the edge of the metal plate encasing her eye.

Kraglin yanked his hand away as if burned, his cheeks flushing a deep blue. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Does that hurt you?”

Nebula took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head. “No,” she said in the voice she hated, the voice that was too deep for her body. “It doesn’t hurt.” They could both hear what she wasn’t saying – Nebula hadn’t had much experience in life of a touch that didn’t hurt, that was not intended to cause as much pain as possible.

Swallowing back her fear, Nebula, as gently as she could with all her enhancements, reached down between them with her remaining flesh-and-blood hand and grasped Kraglin’s hand with her own. They both gasped as they felt their warm skin pressing against the other’s. Though Kraglin was far from a virgin, all his escapades had been with sexbots on Contraxia, or were quick and dirty affairs in back alleys that ended nearly as soon as they began. Neither of them was used to a touch like this.

Almost as slowly as Kraglin had moved, Nebula brought his hand back to her face, resting his fingers on the place where metal met skin beside her eye.

“You can touch me,” she said. She felt like she had something caught in her throat.

Kraglin swallowed hard and nodded, though Nebula could almost feel the nervousness coming off him in waves. “So...it doesn’t hurt?” Nebula had never heard anyone speak so quietly. He traced his finger across her closed eyelids. She felt a strange sort of warmth course through her veins, spreading through her whole body from where Kraglin touched her.

“No,” she whispered. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Good,” Kraglin said, his finger wandering down her face toward her mouth. “I never want to hurt you.”

Nebula shivered as Kraglin’s finger finally reached her mouth and stopped. She had no personal point of reference for anything like this, but she shut her mind off and parted her lips, taking Kraglin’s finger between them. She heard Kraglin gasp, and Nebula opened her eyes to see his blue eyes gazing at her, his pupils huge, as if he wanted to take in every inch of her. As if he had never seen anything so beautiful.

Before Nebula could stop herself, she cupped Kraglin’s face in her hands, and as he pulled his hand away, she placed a soft, careful kiss on his full, parted lips.

Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, and a searing pain blossomed through the mechanical half of her skull. Before she could stop herself, she had shoved Kraglin off her bed and onto the floor, where he landed with a soft “oof.” She clutched her head in her hands, biting back a scream as her vision filled with red.

“I’m sorry,” she said frantically, shaking her head and pulling her knees to her chest as the pain began to recede. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?” She hated the way her voice sounded: frightened, like she was a little girl being beaten by her sister for the hundredth time as their father watched and smiled.

To Nebula’s surprise, she heard Kraglin huff out a laugh from where he was still laying on the floor. She let go of where she was clutching her head and sat further up on the bed to gaze down at Kraglin. He had stopped laughing, but he smiled at her, his silver teeth glinting in the light. “I’m sorry for laughing,” he said when he caught sight of the severe look on Nebula’s face. “No, you didn’t hurt me. I’m Xandarian. It takes a lot to hurt us.” He pounded on his chest twice as if performing the Ravager salute to prove his point.

Nebula was embarrassed, and she felt her cheeks burn. “I know,” she said, struggling to maintain her fearless facade. “I have killed many Xandarians in my day.” She flopped back against her pillow and out of Kraglin’s sight.

Kraglin swallowed, and let a few moments pass in silence as he stayed where he was on the floor. He knew Nebula well enough by now to know that she was not the frightening assassin with no feelings that she portrayed to the world, but he also knew she was not lying. Still, Kraglin could not find it in him to be afraid of her, although a tiny part of his brain insisted he should be. He had not imagined all the stolen looks they had shared when tending to different tasks on the ship, had not imagined the nights they lay side by side, though neither of them slept, and he knew he had not imagined the feeling of electricity when he kissed her, or when he had merely caressed her face with his finger. He also knew he had not been alone in feeling it. Nebula would never hurt him, just as he would never hurt her.

Kraglin took a deep breath and propped himself up into a sitting position. “Did he – did your father–“ Nebula shot him a murderous look, her black eyes framed by incongruously long eyelashes – “Did Thanos do that to you?”

Nebula tore her eyes away from Kraglin and shrugged, her mechanical hand absentmindedly stroking the top of her head, as if brushing back locks of hair that weren’t there. “I don’t know. He never did anything like that to Gamora. Not that her... _enhancements_ were ever similar to mine,” she admitted through clenched teeth, her hand curled in a fist at her side. “But I’m not certain he – Thanos – was ever capable of creating something like that.”

Kraglin brought himself to his feet. “I don’t think anyone in the galaxy is capable of tech like that.”

Nebula looked up at him. He offered her his hand, and she took it, letting him draw her to her feet. He brought his face close to hers, his warm breath brushing against her face. Her breath hitched in her chest. “What are you doing?” she whispered as Kraglin’s arms snaked around her waist. Tentatively, carefully, she did the same, the pain threatening at her temple to wash over her again. She flinched. 

Kraglin gazed down at her, his blue eyes searching her face. “You know, I’ve never done anything like this before either,” he said, slowly bringing her closer until his chest was flush with hers. Their hearts were beating in tandem. “You don’t have to be afraid.” 

Nebula shook her head in confusion. “Never done this before? You mean you’re a–“

Kraglin cleared his throat, his cheeks darkening again in embarrassment. “No, I – I’m not a virgin.” The tips of his ears had turned blue, and Nebula had to choke back a laugh. “But I’ve never felt anything like _this_ before.” He took Nebula’s hand and placed it over his heart. It jumped against her palm like a wild animal straining to be let free. Suddenly, Nebula found her eyes drawn to a dark patch of chest hair poking out from beneath his red Ravager gear, and she felt a wave of desire crash over her.

“Thanos didn’t put anything in your head that you can’t control,” Kraglin whispered, and Nebula finally met his eyes with her own. “We don’t have to be afraid.”

And his lips were on hers again, his tongue toying with hers, his hands stroking her sides. Nebula ran her hands through his hair, stroking the base of his bright red fin, making him moan into her mouth. Her world was consumed by love and desire and by _him_ , by Kraglin Obfonteri, feared Ravager captain and the gentlest man she had ever known. And there was no room for fear.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope people enjoyed this! This is by far my least popular pairing, but one of my favorites to write for. I have an idea for a sequel to this, but for now this is it, unless people want more of these two. Title is from Blue Lips by Regina Spektor: https://open.spotify.com/track/4HnS7CZWjd8PTQZkh3E1ai?si=puI79UoiT66MTsuS4G-dug


End file.
